Currently, crop straw return via mulching is a practice extensively applied in the fluvo-aquic soil zone of the North China Plain, however, the straw returned via mulching is not readily decomposed and hence unable to raise soil fertility and crop yield instantly.Moreover, straw decomposition needs to consume soil N in competition with crop growth, thus making it hard for the two to share the limited N supply harmoniously. A technique of deep burial of straw coupled with application of inorganic or organic nitrogen as primer was presented in this paper, and a continuous four-year (2011—2014) field experiment was conducted to study effects of the technique on soil fertility and wheat yield. The experiment was designed to have 3 treatments in straw returning method, i.e., Treatment NS (No straw returned), Treatment S (Straw returned via mulching, and Treatment IS (straw buried in deep furrows and then covered with crop planted in between the furrows). In addition, Treatment NS consisted of two sub-treatments, Sub-treatment NSF0(No straw returned and no fertilizer applied) and Sub-treatment NSFR (No straw returned, but fertilizer applied at a common rate); and Treatment IS did of three sub-treatments, Sub-treatment ISFR (Deep burial of straw plus conventional fertilization). Sub-treatment ISF (Deep burial of straw applied with chemical fertilizer as primer) and Sub-treatment ISOM (Deep burial of straw applied with organic manure as primer). And Sub-treatments ISF and ISGM was further divided into three Plots ISF1, ISF2 and ISF3, and Plots ISOM1, ISOM2 and ISOM3, corresponding to the proportion of nitrogen consumed by straw decomposition, 8%, 16% and 24%, respectively. Results show that (1) compared to control (Sub-treatment NSF0),all the treatments, except for Sub-Treatment NSF0 improved soil nutrient contents, especially Sub-Treatments ISF and ISOM. The effect of Sub-Treatments ISF was mainly on content of nitrate-N and the most remarkable in Plot ISF2, increasing the content of nitrate-N by 82.99%, while that of Sub-Treatments ISOM was obvious on almost all the other soil nutrients, and the most remarkable in Plot ISOM2, increasing the content of organic matter, microbial biomass carbon, microbial biomass nitrogen and total N in the soil by 60.84%, 123.2%, 207.7% and 90.91%, respectively; compared with 2011, 2014 saw sharp drops in all soil nutrients in Sub-treatment NSF0, but rises in all the treatments and sub-treatments, particularly in Sub-treatments ISF and ISOM, which suggests that the new technique may contribute significantly to improvement of soil fertility; (2) improved soil fertility improved the yield of winter wheat, compared with 2011, the yield decreased by 157.7% in Sub-treatment NSF0 in 2014, but increased by 28.91% and 30.83% in Sub-treatments NSFR and ISFR, and the positive effect was especially significant in Sub-treatments ISF and ISOM, particularly in Plot ISF2, where the yield was increased by 36.17%; and (3) among the indices of yield composition of winter wheat, 1000-grain weight and numberof grains per spike did not differ much between treatments and the increase in yield was manifested in number of effective spikes; all, except for NSF0 and SF0; the number of effective spikes increased with the experiment going on, particularly in Plot ISF2, where the number increased by up to 49.96%; In 2014, Sub-treatments ISF and ISOM increased the number of effective spikes of winter wheat by 144.7% ~ 169.1%, and the effect was the most significant in Plot ISF2, as compared to 2012. To sum up the treatment in Plot ISF2 is the most recommendable mode of straw returning for the studied area.